In October 1897, H. P. Northcott was appointed Commissioner and
Commandant of the Northern Territories, with the task of controlling areas
in the hinterland of the Gold Coast that were tied to Great Britain under
treaties of friendship or protection. The Anglo-French Convention of 1898
delineated the territorial boundaries of the new protectorate, while the
Northern Territories Order in Council of 1901 defined its legal status as
formally independent protectorate, though at the same time subject to the
Gold Coast Governor. The British had brought the Northern Territories
under their control in order to prevent European rivals from establishing
themselves along the trade routes from Kumasi to the north. However,
neither the Colonial Office nor the Governor of the Gold Coast had a clear
idea of what to do with this new appendage of the Gold Coast Colony,
except that its administration should cost as little as possible. Northcott and
his successors, Morris and Watherston, stated ‘opening up the country and
facilitating commercial intercourse’ to be the main goal. This required the
pacification of the region and the mobilisation of labour to carry goods and
build roads. In the context of such plans, ‘native chiefs’ were to be the
pillars of a ‘scheme of government of the simplest and most economic
form’.1

This chapter deals with the introduction of chieftaincy in the formerly
chiefless societies of the North-West – a process guided by colonial officials’
normative ideas of ‘tribes’ and ‘native states’, which deliberately denied
local realities, while at the same time gradually transforming the latter so
that they more closely resembled British expectations. The pre-colonial
structures to which the new chiefdoms attached themselves differed from
case to case. This question was also intensely debated on the spot, because
the new chiefs as well as their competitors and opponents sought to support
political claims by referring to pre-colonial traditions and to how the British
set up the first chiefs. A typical model appears to have been the recruitment
of the first chiefs from the local ‘strongmen’. However, not everywhere did
these first chiefs also belong to the earth priest’s patrilineage, and even
where they did, the offices of earth priest and chief were from the very
beginning separate. The extent of the new chiefdoms was therefore defined

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana.
Contributors: Carola Lentz - Author.
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press.
Place of publication: Edinburgh.
Publication year: 2006.
Page number: 33.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may
not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.

If you are trying to select text to create highlights or citations, remember that you must now click or tap on the first word, and then click or tap on the last word.

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.